sábado, 30 de abril de 2016

Exclusive: Perhaps nowhere does U.S. hypocrisy over human rights
stand out more clearly than Indonesia’s “Year of Living Dangerously”
slaughter of vast numbers of people in 1965, dirty secrets that Jonathan Marshall says finally deserve airing.

Egypt’s military regime is suppressing political opposition even more
ferociously than the longtime Mubarak dictatorship while also
collaborating in the strangulation of Gaza, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul
R. Pillar.

He asserts that the weight of peer-reviewed scientific evidence has
shown the EU-adopted ‘precautionary principle’ towards GMO to be
misguided. In his view, where genetically modified crops have been shown
to pose a risk, this has invariably been a result of the trait
displayed — for example, herbicide tolerance — rather than the
technology itself. Ray adds that no inherent risks have so far been
identified to human or animal health from this consumption or to the
environment from their cultivation.

Rays seems to concur with the report’s conclusion that Europe’s
precautionary GMO regulation is preventing the adoption of GM crops in
the UK, Europe and the developing world.

He says: “Worldwide, over 175 million hectares are dedicated to GM
crop, accounting for 12 per cent of arable land. No inherent risks have
so far been identified to human or animal health from this consumption
or to the environment from their cultivation.”

Implicit in this claim is a common tactic: the industry does not have
to prove safety (in its view), but now GM has been fraudulently (see Steven Druker’s book)
released onto the market, the onus is placed on everyone else to prove
it is unsafe – regardless of the fact that clear, serious safety issues
were downplayed or silenced back in the 1990s when GM was being forced
onto the US public (again, see Druker).

Moreover, the implication of the above quote is that farmers are
freely choosing to plant GM. This is based more on free-market ideology
than actual fact. Aside from employing coercive tactics to
try to get GMO into countries, the closing off of alternatives plays a
major role in influencing adoption of certain technology (see this for how the Gates Foundation is supporting agro dealer networks to push chemical intensive agriculture in Africa, this on Bt cotton in India and this on Monsanto’s game plan in Ukraine).

Ray’s claim about GMO technology not posing unique risks to health or the environment is not only wrong (for example, see this and this),
but any implications derived from this claim that GM is no different
from conventional breeding techniques is also incorrect and needs to be challenged.
Furthermore, it is conventional breeding techniques that are delivering
on the promises that GM has thus far failed to deliver on (see page 8
of this document) and which the GM industry often attempts to pass off as its own successes.

However, Ray’s biggest mistake is relying on a seriously flawed report to try to make a case for GMO.

In essence, the European Commission
has effectively deserted its principles when it comes to GMO’s entering
the food chain within the 28 nation bloc. Intense lobbying by United
States representatives for the EU Commission to disregard current GMO
rules which require stringent safety tests and labelling has proved
successful. The result is that genetically modified organisms produced
through a modified technique called ‘gene editing’ will be allowed. Gene
editing is all but the same as anything we understand about GMO’s
generally.

Freedom of Information documents show the scale of US lobbying has
overwhelmed the EU Commission who now stand accused of bowing to US
pressure and abdicating to the corporations and rejecting citizen
concerns. The documents reveal that US representatives pushed for the EU
to disregard its own GMO rules on the basis that the EU were simply
putting up barriers and stifling trade under the proposed TTIP
negotiations. The papers state that the EU should completely ignore
health and environmental safeguards to pave the way for successful
negotiations.

On the EC website
the very first paragraph reads: “The European Union has established a
legal framework to ensure that the development of modern biotechnology,
and more specifically of GMOs, takes place in safe conditions.”

In the EU’s GMO directive/2001/18 the
Directive clearly states: (clause 10)”For a comprehensive and
transparent legislative framework, it is necessary to ensure that the
public is consulted by either the Commission or the Member States during
the preparation of measures and that they are informed of the measures
taken during the implementation of this Directive” and (clause 19) “A
case-by-case environmental risk assessment should always be carried out
prior to a release. It should also take due account of potential
cumulative long-term effects associated with the interaction with other
GMOs and the environment.”

In addition, the GMO Directive is quite clear on one thing (clause 23): “No
GMOs, as or in products, intended for deliberate release are to be
considered for placing on the market without first having been subjected
to satisfactory field testing at the research and development stage in
ecosystems which could be affected by their use.”

Iraq – US Apocalypse in Mosul in the Guise of Bombing ISIS

By Felicity Arbuthnot – On 1st
May 2003, George W. Bush stood in a dinky little flying suit on the
deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and in a super stage managed appearance
told the lie of the century: “Major combat operations in Iraq have
ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have
prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and
reconstructing that country.” (1)

George W Bush on the deck of USS Abraham Lincoln 2003

The illegal occupation and decimation of Iraq continued until
December 2011. In June 2014 they returned to bomb again in the guise of
combating ISIS. As the thirteenth anniversary of Bush’s ridiculous
appearance with a vast “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him, Iraq is
largely in ruins, Iraqis have fled the murderous “liberation” and it’s
aftermath in millions and there are over three million internally
displaced.

The nation is pinned between a tyrannical, corrupt US puppet
government, a homicidal, head chopping, raping, organ eating, history
erasing, US-spawned ISIS – and a renewed, relentless US bombardment. So
much for the 2008 US-Iraq State of Forces agreement, which stated that
by 31st December 2011: “all United States forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory.”

On the USS Abraham Lincoln Bush stated: “In this battle, we have
fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world …
Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant
has fallen, and Iraq is free.”

In what has transpired to be monumental irony, he continued: “The
liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror.
We have removed an ally of al-Qaida, and cut off a source of terrorist
funding.” There was of course, no al-Qaida in Iraq, no funding of
fundamentalist terrorism under Saddam Hussein, it is the invasion’s
conception, birth, now reached maturity from Baghdad to Brussels, Mosul
to the Maghreb, Latakia to London.

Panama, the secret garden of the Colombian oligarchy

This guest blog is written by a political news writer in Colombia, who wishes to remain anonymous.

As everywhere else in the world, the disclosure of the Mossack
Fonseca documents has been on the front page of all major Colombian
papers. However, the close historical links between Colombia and
neighbouring Panama, as well as the deeply unequal social structure of
the country, make the case of Colombia particularly interesting. Given
the unusually close historical, economic and political links between the
two countries, it is remarkable that almost nothing of substance has
emerged from the Panama papers, from a Colombian perspective.

Strong economic growth over the last 15 years, combined with the
status of a middle-income emerging country and a likely peace agreement
with the Marxist guerrilla of the FARC (and possibly later with the
other remaining guerrilla of the ELN (National Liberation Army) have
turned Colombia into a new “El Dorado” for some foreign investors.
Though very dependent on commodities exports, the country has managed to
resist the global downturn in commodities and oil prices. It remains an
island of relative prosperity in an economically downbeat Latin
America.

Panama hosts an estimated 50,000 Colombian shell companies. In the
first days of the scandal, the media announced a small number of
Colombian accounts among the data leak: 850. Publicly, however, the
names of only 12 people were given – and then nothing more happened.

Colombia has always been a deeply unequal country with weak state
control in broad parts of its territory and a violent history of civil
wars and guerrillas. Yet it has always been formally a democracy. Its
50-year-long and very complex internal armed conflict, born in the
context of the Cold War, was triggered by land and social inequality,
and was later fuelled by drug trafficking. According to a 2015 UN Development Programme report, the country ranks 12th worst in the world in terms of income distribution, and second in this regard (after South Africa) among countries with a significant population.

John Pilger – Murdoch may be a convenient demon, but the media is a junta

Every Saturday we feature an article written by highly acclaimed film-maker, author and journalist John Pilger who,
with such foresight encapsulates how our world is being shaped by
corporations, corrupted political systems, propaganda, globalisation and
war. This piece was written originally June 2012 and is just as
applicable today, if not more so.

Australia is the world’s first murdochracy. US citizen Rupert Murdoch
controls 70 per cent of the metropolitan press. He has monopolies in
state capitals and provincial centres. The only national newspaper is
his. He is a dominant force online and in pay-TV and publishing. Known
fearfully as “Rupert”, he is the Chief Mate.

But Murdoch’s dominance is not as it is often presented. Although he
is now one of the West’s accredited demons, thanks to his phone-hackers,
he is but part of a media system that will not change when his empire
is broken up. The political extremism that is the concentration of the
world’s wealth in few hands and the accelerating impoverishment of the
majority will ensure this.

A Melbourne journalist, Paul Chadwick, one of the few to rebel
against Murdoch, described this as “akin to a small group of generals
who sit above the main institutions… a junta in all but name”.

Consider the junta’s rise. In the US, at the end of the second world
war, 80 per cent of newspapers were independently owned. By 1987, most
were controlled by 15 corporations, of which six dominate today. Their
ideological message is a mantra. They promote global and domestic
economic piracy and the cult of “perpetual war”. This is currently
served by a “liberal” president who pursues whistleblowers, dispatches
drones and selects from his personal “kill list” every Tuesday.

In Britain, where the propaganda of big capital also dominates, the
historic convergence of the two main political parties is rarely news.
Tony Blair, a conspirator in the greatest crime of this century, is
promoted as “a wasted talent”. In all these agendas, notably the
promotion of war, the Murdoch press often plays a supporting role to the
reputable BBC. The Leveson inquiry has shown not the slightest interest
in this.

In Australia, there is the Order of Mates. A struggle for the mantle
of Chief Mate is currently under way. From out of a vast Aladdin’s Cave
of mineral wealth, comes Gina Rinehart, said to be the richest woman in
the world. The daughter of iron ore billionaire Lang Hancock, Rinehart
and her fellow mining oligarchs all but got rid of Labor prime minister
Kevin Rudd in 2010 when he proposed a modest tax on their huge profits.
Rinehart believes Australia’s media is basically communist, especially
the Fairfax group of which she has now acquired almost a fifth of the
stock.

The ‪#‎WorldBank‬
(WB) has released its 2016 edition of International Debt Statistics.
The report surveys 120 countries that are categorized as low- or
middle-income (LMI countries) according to World Bank criteria. All the
post-Soviet states were included in the survey.

If you have not see or heard of Vaxxed, the reason is it has been
blacklisted. Why? Because it tells the truth about the devastating harms
of vaccines and the CDC's MMR-autism coverup. This is a must see film,
but be forewarned: it is a tear jerker...

Palestinian citizens are being incarcerated left and right for Facebook
statuses. But Israeli soldier Elor Azaria, indicted for manslaughter,
wasn’t even taken in for questioning over tweets calling for massacres
of Palestinians.

A destroyed quarter in Shujaiyeh neighborhood in the east of Gaza City, July 27, 2014. (Photo by Anne Paq/Activestills.org)

CATALONIA UNDER SIEGE

Might does not make right – Catalan laws suspended by Spain Constitutional Court [2012-16]

For several years now the Spanish
government has been challenging Acts and even Resolutions of the Catalan
Parliament before the Spanish Constitutional
Court. These Acts fall within the powers of Catalonia according to the
Catalan Statute of Autonomy as restrictively interpreted by the 2010
Constitutional Court ruling.

As many will remember, this Court had been required in 2006, for the very first time, to pass judgement on a new regional constitution (“Statute of Autonomy”) – that of Catalonia – the text of which had been scrutinised and amended by the Spanish Congress of Deputies and the Senate before being ratified in a referendum by the Catalan people. The circumstances surrounding this judgement and others affecting Catalonia have led many Catalans to lose faith in the impartiality of the members of the Court.

The Constitutional Court (Spanish: Tribunal Constitucional, TC) is the highest body with the task of determining whether legal acts and measures in Spain conform to the Constitution. The court is the “supreme interpreter”of the Constitution (the court is not a part of the Spanish Judiciary, the top appeal court for all judicial matters being the Supreme Court).

The Constitutional Court has twelve members, who serve for nine-year terms. Qualified majorities of each of the two Chambers of the Spanish Parliament propose most of the members: – 4 are appointed by the Congress of Deputies, – 4 are appointed by the Senate, – 2 are appointed by the executive branch (the government), an

– 2 are appointed by the General Council of the Judiciary.

All are formally appointed by the Spanish king. One of the members is proposed by the others to be its President, for a three-year term; he or she is assisted by another of the members chosen to be vice-president, and by another member, who acts as general secretary, and is responsible for overseeing the Courts’ staff.

The Constitution sets a threshold of fifteen years of experience in fields related to jurisprudence, including “jutges, magistrates and prosecutors, university professors, civil servants and lawyers,” and members may not simultaneously hold a post in a political party or trade union or an elected post, or be employed by them, or engage in commercial or professional activities.

Despite this principle, the media and political commentators have often voiced the view that the selection procedures used to choose the members of the Constitutional Court are in many cases influenced by political party allegiances and affinities. To the extent that this is perceived by public opinion to be a significant factor in many of the appointments, questions have been raised – and not just in Catalonia – about a possible lack of neutrality in the Court’s deliberations and judgements.
Furthermore, several drafters of the 1978 Constitution have said that
the text is no longer being interpreted in line with its original
meaning.

Nowadays, and especially in issues related to Catalonia’s political aspirations, instead of politically negotiating with the Catalan authorities the implementation of what is an democratic mandate won at the ballot box, it is easy to conclude that the Spanish government is using the court to divert or block contentious political issues that in countries with a consolidated democratic tradition are usually resolved by political dialogue.

Whatever the Court will eventually rule, as soon as the Spanish government refers a law or a decree to the Constitutional Court, that measure is by law automatically blocked for five months, and sometimes longer. This has affected about 24 Catalan laws, decrees and resolutions just in the past four years.

The United States military today released its investigative report on
the attack on the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, on October 3, 2015. http://bit.ly/1TamUg8

The World Today: Hospital bombed in Aleppo

Paul
McPhun, executive director of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without
Borders) Australia talks to ABC's The World Today program about the
bombing of a hospital supported by Médecins Sans Frontières in Aleppo,
Syria.

“It’s
been a horrific night for our colleagues. They witnessed barrel bombs
exploding close to the hospital, and then they started to take in
patients. Shortly after as patients have gathered in the hospital and
were being treated, a barrel bomb exploded at the gates of the hospital
itself.”

“Medical facilities in urban settings, urban centres, civilian
populated areas are clearly being systematically targeted in Syria,
there’s absolutely no doubt about that. In 2015 alone, we have 94
attacks against 63 hospitals that we supported. In this year alone,
we’ve had 11 attacks against hospitals that we’ve supported. These are
just the hospitals we’re supporting, so clearly there’s no distinction
being made whatsoever between what should be protected under
International Humanitarian Law as a medical facility, and what would be a
legitimate target to attack in war.”

viernes, 29 de abril de 2016

As Saudi war crimes and crimes against humanity continue apace in Yemen,
Saudi Arabia is now apparently attempting to gain public support and
better reception from the viewing audience by painting itself as an
enemy of al-Qaeda and ISIS, despite the fact that the feudal monarchy’s
reputation for supporting these very same terror organizations has been
documented time and again.

Portland, OR – A pioneering biotechnology startup has launched an
online interactive guide that maps the genetic evolution of the cannabis
genome, allowing for specific strains of marijuana that are already in
the public domain a form of protection from patenting by large biotech
firms such as Monsanto.

After two years of collecting samples,
sequencing the plant’s DNA and developing the software to allow for a
3-D visualization of the collected data, the company was ready to unveil
their long-awaited project.

“Sample collection was a huge part of this process,” Carolyn White, Sales and Marketing Manager at Phylos Bioscience told the Willamette Weekly.
“One side was a collaboration with growers, dispensaries and labs to
collect modern samples, and the other a process of hunting down ancient
landrace strains from all over the world.”

The Portland company, fittingly on 4/20, went online with its interactive guide, which the company calls Galaxy.

April 27, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) —
Swiss multinational bank, Credit Suisse, will collaborate with data
analysis firm, Palantir, to launch a trader surveillance program.
According to Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Voegeli,
the joint venture, called Signac, aims to catch rogue Wall Streeters
engaged in illegal trading. It comes in the wake of a number of trading
scandals in recent years that have cost banks billions of dollars.

Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel and seed-funded by the CIA.
The company was funded in part by In-Q-Tel Inc., the venture capital
investment arm of the CIA that has a long, symbiotic history with
startups, the NSA, the FBI, and DARPA. In fact, In-Q-Tel specifically funds tech start-ups “to advance ‘priority’ technologies of value”
in the intelligence community. The group has ties to Donald Rumsfeld’s
Total Information Awareness initiative and is believed by some to have worked closely with Google in its earliest years.

Palantir itself has lived in the shadows since its 2004 inception,
working primarily to create a proprietary data mining system used by law
enforcement agencies, finance firms, and security companies to isolate
criminality. For example, Palantir’s software was used to analyze the
troves of millions of documents related to the Bernie Madoff scandal.

Palantir has an extensive relationship with the U.S. government, and includes among its clients
the CIA, DHS, NSA, FBI, the CDC, the Marine Corps, the Air Force,
Special Operations Command, West Point, the Joint IED-defeat
organization and Allies, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency
Board, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Another client is the Los Angeles Police Department. A leaked document from 2013 included a quote from Sergeant Peter Jackson, who said Palantir’s technology is allowing the LAPD to become more efficient.

The new trader surveillance co-venture comes at a time when Credit
Suisse finds itself in dire straits. After adhering to a so-called
Pursuit of Revenue “At All Costs” policy, the company now finds itself
facing $90 billion of distressed debt and rampant illiquidity.

Bitter tasting news: In a letter to US Trade Representative Froman, 26 Memebers of the US Senate insist that ‪#‎TTIP‬
has to break down regulatory barriers in the food industry and
agriculture. More precisely, the signatories demand to lower European
standards for "hormone use in US beef, maximum residue limits in fruits
and vegetables and dairy certification requirements". If the final
agreement does not include these claims, it "could have a negative
impact on Congressional support for this deal". ‪#‎StopTTIP‬ The original letter with all signatories: http://ow.ly/4nelhj

The world’s third largest soy exporter may have just dealt another blow to the multi-national agricultural company Monsanto.

The issue surrounds the fact that Monsanto has been demanding that
exporters inspect cargo to determine whether or not farmers had paid the
requisite royalties to produce the company’s genetically modified
soybeans. Monsanto is claiming that Argentine farmers have benefited
immensely from the Intacta technology and is demanding that everyone pay
to use it.

For about a year, Monsanto has been pressuring shipping companies and
demanding that the companies notify it when crops produced with Intacta
technology are scheduled to be exported without corresponding
documentation proving that royalties had been paid to Monsanto.

The Intacta soybeans in question are genetically engineered to have a
gene that protects them against worms that target the plant. Monsanto
is demanding royalties for grains produced even by second generation
seeds. Farmers, however, argue that Argentinian law does not require
that they pay for second generation production and are asking the
government to stop private companies from acting as food inspectors.

This episode chronicles the Clinton's rise to power in the 90s on a right-wing agenda, the Clinton Foundation's revolving door with Gulf state monarchies, corporations and the world's biggest financial institutions, and the establishment of the hyper-aggressive "Hillary Doctrine" while Secretary of State.

Learn the essential facts about the great danger she poses, and why she's the US Empire's choice for its next CEO.

jueves, 28 de abril de 2016

In an interview with Alternet.org - private, the independent investigative reporter Seymour Hersh was asked about Hillary ‪#‎Clinton‬'s role in the ‪#‎Benghazi‬‪#‎Libya‬ consulate's operation to collect sarin from Libyan stockpiles and send it through ‪#‎Turkey‬ into ‪#‎Syria‬ for a set-up sarin-gas attack, to be blamed on ‪#‎Assad‬ in order to 'justify' the US invading Syria, as it had invaded Libya.

"There is a reason why governments, corporations, and multiple other
entities of authority crave surveillance," writes Glenn Greenwald. "It’s
precisely because the knowledge that one can be monitored radically
changes individual and collective behavior."

Israeli forces killed a young pregnant woman and her 16-year-old brother
at a military checkpoint on Wednesday and denied emergency medics
access to the siblings. Witnesses said they took a path intended for
vehicles, not pedestrians, into Qalandiya checkpoint near Ramallah. The
two were apparently unable to understand Israeli officers yelling in
Hebrew, and stopped walking and that's when they were shot dead.

He asserts that the weight of peer-reviewed scientific evidence has
shown the EU-adopted ‘precautionary principle’ towards GMO to be
misguided. In his view, where genetically modified crops have been shown
to pose a risk, this has invariably been a result of the trait
displayed — for example, herbicide tolerance — rather than the
technology itself. Ray adds that no inherent risks have so far been
identified to human or animal health from this consumption or to the
environment from their cultivation.

Rays seems to concur with the report’s conclusion that Europe’s
precautionary GMO regulation is preventing the adoption of GM crops in
the UK, Europe and the developing world.

He says: “Worldwide, over 175 million hectares are dedicated to GM
crop, accounting for 12 per cent of arable land. No inherent risks have
so far been identified to human or animal health from this consumption
or to the environment from their cultivation.”

Implicit in this claim is a common tactic: the industry does not have
to prove safety (in its view), but now GM has been fraudulently (see Steven Druker’s book)
released onto the market, the onus is placed on everyone else to prove
it is unsafe – regardless of the fact that clear, serious safety issues
were downplayed or silenced back in the 1990s when GM was being forced
onto the US public (again, see Druker).

Moreover, the implication of the above quote is that farmers are
freely choosing to plant GM. This is based more on free-market ideology
than actual fact. Aside from employing coercive tactics to
try to get GMO into countries, the closing off of alternatives plays a
major role in influencing adoption of certain technology (see this for how the Gates Foundation is supporting agro dealer networks to push chemical intensive agriculture in Africa, this on Bt cotton in India and this on Monsanto’s game plan in Ukraine).

Ray’s claim about GMO technology not posing unique risks to health or the environment is not only wrong (for example, see this and this),
but any implications derived from this claim that GM is no different
from conventional breeding techniques is also incorrect and needs to be challenged.
Furthermore, it is conventional breeding techniques that are delivering
on the promises that GM has thus far failed to deliver on (see page 8
of this document) and which the GM industry often attempts to pass off as its own successes.

However, Ray’s biggest mistake is relying on a seriously flawed report to try to make a case for GMO.

The Empire Files: 'This Ship is Sinking' Says Former Bush Official

Abby Martin interviews retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson,
former national security advisor to the Reagan administration, who spent
years as an assistant to Secretary of State Colin Powell during both
Bush administrations. Today, he is honest about the unfixable corruption
inside the establishment and the corporate interests driving foreign
policy.

Hear a rare insider's view of what interests are behind
U.S. wars, the manipulation of intelligence, the intertwining of the
military and corporate world, and why the U.S. Empire is doomed.